This strikes me as likely; as noted, announcing a departure along with a search for a replacement is telling.<p>Was the Surface RT the trigger? Well, one does wonder how many billion dollar write offs can occur under a CEO's watch before the board says enough. E.g. the KIN (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_KIN" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_KIN</a>), even if that wasn't to my knowledge formally written off.
Replace "analyst says" with "area man says" and you get a story from The Onion. I'd be more impressed if an "unnamed Microsoft board member" was the source.
A frustration that I don't hear mention too often is the mess that is MS software licensing. From my perspective, there is often confusion over what is covered and what it will cost and nobody will answer simple questions.<p>I have been to five TechEd's and it is becoming common that speakers start a presentation with "do not talk to me about how to buy this" or "please talk to the license guys". I get this same answer from my local and regional MS sales reps.<p>Sometimes getting pricing on the virtualization and what is covered by SA is a royal pain. Perhaps I have it bad because I work in higher ed, but it was that way when I worked in private enterprise.
The credulous initial stories about his "retirement" were funny. Ballmer was 100% fired. In the long term, the company seriously failed on many fronts. In the short term, Ballmer posted poor quarterly results and sent out a rambling 1400-page email about reorganizing the company, a last ditch effort to show the board he was trying to right the ship. How often does a CEO announce a major reorganization and then quit? And MSFT's official statement says Ballmer is out as soon as they find a successor.<p>It was kind of the board not to cap him execution-style, since he'd put in 30 years of loyal service, but let's be honest about what this "retirement" really is.
Definitely seems true. You can almost feel it in his internal retirement letter to employees where he writes "My original thoughts on timing would have had my retirement happen in the middle of our transformation to a devices and services company" and "I take this step in the best interests of the company I love"
Pretty surprised nobody mentioned the $6 billion writedown of AQuantive. MS bought them as a (crazily impulsive) reaction to Google's DoubleClick purchase. That was also under Ballmer's watch.<p>You could argue $900M isn't much, but $6B has got to be one of the bigger failed acquisitions in business history.<p><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-02/microsoft-will-write-down-6-2-billion-related-to-aquantive-deal.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-02/microsoft-will-writ...</a>
I doubt it was any one thing, but it might have been the final straw. Microsoft has suffered embarrassing setbacks on its entire line of products and services, except Office. And with the PC market dwindling and Surface DOA, they're having to put Office in new places like iOS which they wouldn't have seriously considered a few years ago.
I would have bought one of those damn things too, if only they didn't lock them down.<p>Why the hell did they even do that? Were they really concerned that people like me would buy them and then not use windows on them? I don't see that being much of a threat to their business.
The most interesting question now to me is, not why is Ballmer stepping down, but who could run Microsoft well and succeed him?<p>MS has only ever had two CEO's - the founder, and the founder's right-hand-man. This will be quite a transition for them.<p>What does the board want, what are that person's areas of expertise, background, and experience, man or woman, etc.
Bullshit. $900mm is a small mistake for Microsoft. They're too big for them to fire Steve over a billion dollar mistake. They still have multiple billion+ business. Im not saying they dont have massive problems, but that's absurd.
maybe a bit off topic but the failure of the surface is really depressing, it's really nice hardware (a lot better than other laptops people are being pushed onto at least), and it also happens to be a tablet. I'm not sure what the messaging is on that though (tablet with windows/ultrabook with touchscreen)
The first Surface was always going to have issues. But I think the real problem was that it should have come to market much sooner. And yet the idea of Microsoft getting into hardware must have been a difficult move given the culture and alliances they've worked so hard to build over the years.
Of course it's plausible, that's why they wrote this article citing a nameless "analyst". It also happens to be fantastic clickbait but I'm sure that has nothing to do with it...
As the second largest shareholder, Ballmer is more of "the board" than anyone except Gates. He owns more stock than any institutional investor.<p>Th3 $900 million writedown was less than the fine Microsoft paid to the EU for not offering browser choice with Windows 8 - probably the precipitating cause of Sinofsky's departure last year.<p>What is happening is a the generational shift from pre IPO leadership to post IPO leadership. The heirs have been identified and it's time to let them reshape the company. (My money is on Larson-Green with Reller running the numbers).
My theory is that it hasn't quite hit the fan yet.<p>Microsoft and mobile handsets hangs by a thread at Nokia. If Nokia fails, and it probably will, that's it for Microsoft and "devices" as in a "devices and services company."<p>That means Microsoft can wait a decade or two for the Next Big Thing, while it watches Android take 50% or more of enterprise endpoints. And that is enough to make a dent in revenue.